Mike Augustine, of Greenville, S.C., had some errands to run at his local shopping centers: buy some groceries, pop into a mobile phone retailer, pick up some dry cleaning. And lastly, he had to stop by the health insurance store to pick up a better plan.

Weve all sat in those boring 401(k) education sessionssome of us on both sides of the perpetual PowerPoint. It's the same-old, same-old: Saving is good, saving is great. Hurry up before it's too late.

Don't let the word small mislead youthere's nothing small about them.

I believe HR has at least 26 dirty, little secrets. Im about to tell you about just one. No. 26 could be as bad or worse than No. 1. Ill let you decide when Ive written them all.